Today I feel normal. Yesterday I felt old. Saturday I almost felt like an athlete.
The Team Challenge hosted by Crossfit Brockville is a 3 WOD marathon that spanned 6 hours on a sunny Saturday on the shores of the St Lawrence seaway.
I had put my name on the board as a spare, if anyone needed a guy for the scaled division, I'd put myself out there.
Well the three other that did the same thing decide (with some prodding from Kiza) to put a team together and added my name to the list, so I was in.
I have been nervous for about three days, as the reality settled in. This is not the same as a race or a triathlon. There's more prep. More nutrition. More equipment. More uncertainty. I did my best to ignore the nerves and bring a ton of water and a variety of nutrition options.
We drove down to Brockville early Saturday morning and got registered. We mingled with the other Physics teams that were there.
We were in the 4th heat, so we got to see many other teams do the workouts first, which helped us plan our strategy.
The first WOD of the day was what I would call an ice-breaker. It was bit ridiculous, and had many laughing at first, but it quickly got hard and the laughing stopped well before the end.
WOD 1:
- 50m burpee broad jumps (all team members together)
once all members are finished each member does:
- 15 front squats with the slosh pipe
- run 50m with the slosh pipe. (picture a large 8 foot long pvc drain pipe filled with 40# of water and gravel)
The burpee broad jumps were way harder then I expected, and looked ridiculous. Looked like the biggest game of leap frog ever. I was last to finish on my team and was completely winded. So much so I was unable to do the slosh pipe first. Once I caught my breath, Natasha had already started. The slosh pipe was manageable for the guys, Maks and I could squat it even if it was lop sided, but the girl didn't have the upper body stability. It was really rough on them.
We did okay, 15th out of 28, can't complain.
We had about an hour to rest and rehydrate and recover. Kiza and the kids arrived at this point. The kids were wearing superhero costumes and had made a sign that said "GO GO GO Papa" and the names of our team members. They were a big hit with the crowd.
It was good to have them there. I know it was a ton of work of Kiza, but having a personal cheer squad was wonderful.
WOD 2 was about an hour later:
within 10 minutes, each member does one of the following in this order:
- 1 rep max overhead squat
- 2 rep max shoulder to over head
- 3 rep max hang clean
- 4 rep max front squat
at the 10 minute mark, 3 minute AMRAP one member at a time:
- toes to bar
We worked out that our best scenario was Natasha on the OHS, Maks on the STO, Yvana on the cleans and me on the front squats.
Nat managed a 115#, which is my PR, and neither of the other two could squat over head. Maks nailed 165#, jumped too much to 185# and missed the second rep, went back to 175#, but was too fatigued, and missed the second rep again. I couldn't have done any better. Yvana has an injured knee, so the cleans were her only real option, and she nailed a PB for 3 reps at 135#.
I quickly hit 185#, just to make sure we had a number and immediately did 205# after that. We still had just under 2:00 left, so I hummed and hawed a bit and decided to go for 225#, 10# shy of my PR.
I totally nailed it. That was my finest moment of the day. Followed closely by the the 12 toes to bar I did immediately after. More then double the number I have ever strung together before!
I think we finished 10th and 12th for those two events. The first part worked out really well, it was our best finish of the day and our only top 10 placing.
Time to rest again, and pee (a lot, because I drank a lot) and cheer on our other teams before heading in to the brutal 3rd WOD.
WOD 3 had a 20 minute time cap, I don't think anyone finished.
Paired up men followed by pair up women had to first do the following:
- 40 dead lifts, 185# men, 135# women
- 40 power cleans, 115# men, 95# women
- 40 thrusters, 95# men, 65# women.
share the work as desired between the men and between the women.
After both sets of partners finished part one, one of the four members could start the first of two couplets:
- 50 double unders (or 250 singles)
- 40 box jump overs.
then
-30 pull ups
-30 hand release push ups
but the next person couldn't start until the person ahead had started the next couplet and couldn't start the second couplet until the person ahead had finished the event.
It was brutal, I severely underestimated the box jumps and decide to go first. But I got caught up in the stupid double unders, which had been going really well lately, so that caught me by surprise.
Nat started the double unders as I did the pull ups in 10, 10, 5, and 5 and was into the box jumps as I started the push ups when time ran out.
We finished 25th in this event.
I was so tired at the end of the day, it reminded me of Ironman.
It was nice to be part of a team. I felt I really contributed to the team, especially the first two events. I felt I let them down a bit on the last one. But I did the best I could.
I'm glad I did this. Physics won the prize for the most teams with 5. We scored a Pendlay barbell. Sweet.
I may even do this kind of thing again. Just not anytime soon.
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